Not Often
by thegraytigress
Summary: She doesn't do this often. Not often at all. Filler for "Now Is Not the End".


**DISCLAIMER:** _Captain America: The First Avenger_ is the property of Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Studios, and Marvel Studios. _Marvel's Agent Carter_ is the property of ABC Studios, Walt Disney Studios, and Marvel Studios. This work was created purely for enjoyment. No money was made, and no infringement was intended.

**RATING:** K+ (adult themes)

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: **This is the first of three ficlets about Peggy grieving for Steve during _Agent Carter,_ the other two being "Used" and "A Second Chance". I was particularly touched by the scene in the first episode when Peggy goes down to the archive room and looks at the picture of Steve. This story covers that. Bit of angst and sadness, and obviously Peggy/Steve. Enjoy!

**NOT OFTEN**

Peggy doesn't do this often.

At least, she hasn't recently, so that's mostly true. She hasn't been down to the archives room since coming to New York City, in fact. The temptation has been there, of course. It's always there, like a nagging whisper in the back of her mind. She's managed to ignore it most of the time, staying true to her cause, true and stalwart and indomitable because she is stronger than her grief and stronger than her pain and stronger than all of the people around her give her credit for. She's managed to move on, because that was what she (and everyone else who's lost someone in the war) was told to do. Pick up and rebuild. Live. Be something and somebody in the wake of destruction and devastation and death. _Move on._ So she's done that (admirably and with remarkable aplomb, she thinks). She's been concentrating on work, on trying to _live_ like she's supposed to live.

But it's not always easy, even if she pretends otherwise. It's not easy to dismiss that whisper, that voice telling her a moment of weakness won't betray her. Is that what it is? A moment of weakness? She's not sure. It feels like it. In this world where men control everything, where they dismiss her and laugh at her for her ambitions and ridicule her for trying to do her job, it feels like _any_ emotion is weakness. Emotions can be used against her, used to further their opinions of her inferiority when she knows in the hard places of her heart that she is _every bit _the agent they are, if not more. She was born to do what she does. If they'd only seen her during the war, they'd think twice about treating her like their secretary and wasting her talents. Her service record is beyond reproach, as impeccable as she is, but that's somehow not enough to win their respect. Frustration does not aptly cover what she feels. It's like an impenetrable wall, their disregard for what she can offer and what she can do, and she can't get past it no matter how hard she fights and how high she climbs. It's maddening.

What's even worse than how insurmountable it all seems is that their biggest weapon against her is Steve. That's why _this_ is weakness. They wield him against her like a hammer to bluntly smash her down and shatter her and sweep her remains aside, and the worst of it is they don't even realize how much right they are about her. About what she was. Is. _Captain America's old flame. Captain America's girl. Captain America's liaison._

And they disparage it and demean it and she's helpless to stop them because even acknowledging their treatment of her with anything other than a cocked eyebrow or a cool retort lends it credence. Which then, in turns, makes it a viable reason to dismiss her. Which _then_ makes it hurt more, making it seem more and more true, and it's a vicious circle and she's not falling into it because she's _better_ than this. She's better than what they think she is. Better than her grief. Better than her memories. _Better._

Then again, here she is, down in the archives room that has seemed like a forbidden trove since coming to New York, and she's sliding that banker's box off the shelf. She hesitates only a moment, perhaps like a drunkard considering the next drink he vaguely knows he shouldn't have but is helpless to prevent himself from downing. Her hands slide over the top of the box, and she nearly loses her nerve. Nearly. _This is for the mission,_ she tells herself. She's looked in the files for Project: Rebirth often in the past, so she knows Doctor Erskine's VitaRay detector is in there. _I have to. There is a good reason. This time I have a good reason. _She can only lie to herself so much.

Eventually she pulls the box down and sets it to the small table. She removes the lid with a tiny spray of dust. Everything looks the same as the last time she saw it. It was back in London as SSR was organizing and packing up its files and supplies after VE-day. The war was over, but the mood was somber. Captain Rogers was dead. Sergeant Barnes, as well. Two heroes who sacrificed everything for the safety of their world and the good of their country. Everyone felt that loss, and everyone was tenderly and silently nursing these wounds, she most of all. She packed the box by herself with the remains of Project: Rebirth, with the folder Colonel Phillips sadly gave her. She packed it up and closed up her heart, too. What was the point of mourning? She still isn't sure. It doesn't bring him back. It doesn't bring _any _of them back. It is nothing but pain, but unfulfilled dreams and shattered hearts. It serves _no _practical purpose, and she believes in pragmatism, in self-reliance. It didn't matter what she believed, though, how impractical it was. She mourned all the same. In some ways, she never stopped.

She feels the uncomfortable sting mounting in her eyes and exhales shakily. She hasn't cried since that Saturday after Steve was lost. She's never told anyone, but she went to the Stork Club at eight o'clock, just as she told Steve she would. It was silly and foolish and embarrassing, but she sat there with a drink she didn't drink, watching the door, _waiting_ for him because he promised he would be there and Steve always kept his promises. It was ridiculous, the sort of flight of irrationality she typically despises, but she went and did it anyway because denial was the only comfort she had. Eight o'clock became nine o'clock, and nine turned into ten, and ten to eleven and soon the proprietors were closing those doors and asking her to leave. Steve never came. Of course he wouldn't. He was dead. She went back to the hotel and sobbed like she never had before, curled up tightly on her bed and letting the pain pour from her broken heart. Steve never came, because he wasn't coming home. He left her, left them all, and he was _never_ coming back.

There's been a tear or two since, but not much and not often. She can't afford for there to be more. Sometimes she feels like if she stops in her headstrong drive to serve SSR just as she always has, she'll collapse. It will all catch up with her. Colleen thought she's too serious. Too withdrawn and cold. Too desperate to maintain a stiff upper lip, the perfect picture of being put-together and in control. Colleen knew it's a mask, something Peggy wears because of the man she lost during the war. And it is. Colleen was perhaps a tad scattered-brain, but she was so kind and perceptive. And, with her gone, the closest thing Peggy has had since Steve to a friend, that mask is all that remains. All she has now. She clings to it, because to do anything else will lead to too many things she can't stand to feel.

So she dons that apathy. That cool composure. She's here for a purpose, on a mission to protect Howard, and she needs to focus to get that done. She does. She digs inside the box, pushing aside a copy of Steve's dog tags, and lifts the folder to get it out of the way. The minute she touches it, though, with the huge, red "INACTIVE" stamped cruelly across its front, she loses her nerve.

And then she dispenses with the lie. It's not often she does this, so it's alright. _It's alright._ She unwraps the ties securing the front of the folder. She knows what's inside. She knows because she's looked so many times before. When she opens the folder, Steve's picture is right there, right where she left it. Steve, as he had been before the serum. Small and thin and sickly, but still so strong and so pure and so beautiful. She lifts it almost reverently, staring at it, memorizing it again. She so often sees the other image of Steve, the image of Captain America adorned in muscles and strength and vitality, decked out in red, white, and blue with his shield at the ready to protect and defend. She sees that so much that she forgets this was what he was when she met him as a laughable but still hopeful recruit for the super soldier program. That was what he was when she fell in love with him. She did love him, she knows now, from this moment where she first saw him. And she loves him still. She always will.

A flood of memories prods at her. These, too, are persistent whispers, ever tangling around in her thoughts. It takes nothing at all sometimes for them to trouble her. She doesn't usually let them do more than tease her, a torment of a ghostly touch, the hint of his lips in a knowing smile, the glow of his eyes and the warm strength of his fingers. They're something of a guilty pleasure, something she allows herself once in a while. Now it all rushes against her composure. _"I'm gonna need a rain check on that dance…"_ Her eyes keep burning despite herself. A rain check. A lie for her sake. How could he have been so calm, so strong and brave? In the face of so much suffering and darkness and evil, he was always so _strong_. _"We'll have the band play something slow. I'd hate to step on your–"_

"Steve," she whispers. It's hardly anything, a breath of longing from her lips. She misses him so, a terrible, hungry ache in her heart that's never placated, never satiated, _never _healed. Even a year later, she is so easily swept back into everything she's trying to leave behind. The pain comes, stronger this time as if actually looking at his picture is heightening its sharpness. She suffers through it, holds back the unbidden tears she still refuses to cry. _The right partner. _He was it. The best man she ever knew, a hero in the truest, strictest sense of the word. Somebody with whom she could have spent the rest of her life. He was perfect and blind to it, so blind to his worth. Humble and powerful and noble. Valorous. That was why Doctor Erskine chose him. Not too many people saw it. She did. She saw it right away. And the way he floundered around her, flustered and adorably oblivious. The warmth in her heart, in her belly, at his clumsy attempts to talk to her, to woo her. The wave of exhilaration and pride knowing she reduced him to speechlessness, to complete ineptitude. The thrill of their blossoming romance. The things she wanted to teach him. He was perfect, and they were perfect for each other. _Perfect._

But he's gone, and she's alone.

She doesn't often let herself think that.

Nor does she often imagine what it must have been like, crashing that plane. Dying to stop HYDRA and save the world. Her mind strays unwittingly to that, like a horror from which she can't tear her eyes simply because it's right in front of her. That sharp pain in her chest gets sharper still, and she can hardly breathe. _Did he die quickly? Did he suffer?_ _Is he actually… _She can hardly stand it. These are the things on which she never allows herself to dwell. It hurts so badly.

She forces her heart to beat and her lungs to work. A simple, slow breath feels marvelous and does wonders to drive the darkness away. Again she blinks back the tears but with greater poise, and Steve's picture shifts from blurry gray to his familiar features. On the tail of the most painful things, there's always what could have been. This is her most guilty pleasure of all. It hurts her as well, but it's a bittersweet pain, something she gladly endures. She's as far from a simpering, lovesick girl as possible (at least, she forces herself to be), but she can't help but explore the dashed dreams still so strongly lodged in her heart. What would it have been like if he hadn't been lost? If he survived and came home? What they could have had. What they could have shared. A real romance, beautiful and true. Would they have married? She thinks so, wishes it. They never discussed it (there were certain things one did not discuss in the warzone), but she thinks he would have wanted children. She could have given him that, given him _everything _he wanted. She could have been his wife, sure of her place at his side, sure of _herself_ because she'd have nothing to prove. A force to be reckoned with, for certain, but all of these lies about the adventures of Captain America would be dashed with the truth. She _is _his girl, his liaison and his flame, and she can be proud of that instead of ashamed of it. She was his support, the voice of reason and morality and strength, the pillar on which he leaned. All the propaganda and the nonsense and the hurtful jabs of her peers… All of it would be nothing. _Gone._

She wouldn't have to lie about how much she was grieving, not to them and not to herself.

And she could get on with her life as it was supposed to be, not this hollow… emptiness. Suffering through the daily motions. Living but not feeling. Fighting but for no true purpose. A part of her knows she can't keep doing what she's been doing, as well. To hide how she's feeling, to deny weakness, to close herself off from everyone else. It's so easy, and that makes it harder to stop. People close to her die. Colleen. So many men during the war. Bucky Barnes. And Steve, of course. Why didn't she tell him what she felt? That night, after Barnes had been lost… Steve was trying to drink his sorrows away, trying and failing miserably because of the serum, and she went to him, wanting so badly to ease his pain. She took him back to the barracks, helped him out of his uniform because he was so lost in his grief, weak for once when he always needed to be so strong. She let him be. She let him silently cry. She let him let go. And after he was spent and exhausted, she put him to bed. She stood there, looking down on him as he drifted off, her fingers _aching_ to touch him. He was mostly asleep, so she didn't think he ever knew, ever noticed her hands slip through his hair and marvel at its soft, thickness or her thumb lightly brush away the tracks of his tears or caress the fullness of his lips. He never noticed her kiss him, tender and sweetly, a first touch of something she wanted so much. Something she thought she'd have eventually, when the war was over.

Eventually is here now, and she has nothing but these sweet memories. And regrets. She should have told him right there, as he peacefully slipped away, how much she loved him. But she was afraid, so she didn't. Two days later he was gone.

At least the last kiss she knows he noticed.

She's drifting, staring, sunk so far in it now that she can't come up for air. Staring at the picture and letting it all come to her. Steve's smile. Steve's eyes, so bright and blue. Steve's hands, huge but still so gentle and deft and surprisingly finely-boned. An artist's hands. The excitement bubbling through her every time she watched him fight and win. The pride at seeing him inspire and lead the troops. His breathless smile when she wore the red dress to the bar just to see him stare at her. The way he smelled when she embraced him that night in London and let him cry into her shoulder. The only time since that she's held anyone like that was when Howard came to tell her they couldn't find HYDRA's plane and that the search was being called off. She was the one crying then, crying into Howard as he awkwardly hugged her and shushed her and promised her it would all be alright. It wasn't alright. It _isn't_ alright.

But it will be, she thinks, so long as she keeps trying. She dislikes the bitterness, so she casts it aside. That is the biggest reason she doesn't normally come here. There's the grief, yes. And the memories and the pain and the what-could-have-beens. But it's the doubt that hurts the most. She's stronger than it. She can overcome it, so she does. It always ends like this, with a resolution to not allow herself to be burdened or broken. To not come back. To not do this again. She can't live in the past. She's alive now, and she has a chance to prove herself. She has the chance to fight. To carry on. She knows she can do it. Steve believed in her so much, admired her for her strength and courage and intelligence and determination. She'll let him down if she allows anything to defeat her. She can't let him down.

There's a rattle, and she startles, nearly dropping Steve's picture. She turns, schooling her features into that impassive mask again. No tears. No weakness. Cool confidence. Strength. She's Agent Carter. She was before Captain America came into her life, and she certainly can be without him. And she has a mission to complete.

Daniel is there. He has this look on his face, pained and strained and unsure of himself. He knows he's interrupted something personal, something _sacred_, and he's ashamed to have disturbed her. Of all the men with whom she works now, Daniel's the most civil. The kindest. She doesn't need him (or anyone else) to take care of her, but she secretly appreciates the sentiment. "Sorry," he manages, flustered. "This doesn't quite–"

"It's fine," she says dismissively. He stares awkwardly, uncomfortably, like he's searching for something to say because he knows what he caught her doing and how embarrassed she could be because of it.

Oddly enough, she's not. "I can assure you," she adds, "I don't do this often."

**THE END**


End file.
